Dish Network Review

[SilverAlien81]

I am looking at switching from Comcast to Dish Network, however I had a hard time finding some good review stories from consumers on Dish Network.

Please let me know how Dish Network is/has worked for you.

The only information I have from a friend is that Dish suffers from more signal loss due to rain fade etc. than DirecTV.

Thanks again,

 

[Nebugeater]

Look around here and read a while, you will find plenty of info. Some good, some not so good. Bottom line is do some research and you will be able to make an educated dicision. You will find fans of both and haters of both. As far as rain fade, I have had DISH for 9+ years and probably loose signal do to rain 2 - 3 times a year at most for no more than 5 min at a time. It depends a lot on location, Sat. you are looking at, how well the dish is pointed, ect. I know people with Direct that have way more issues....but I know of Dish issues that are worse than my experiance. All I know is that Cable is not trouble free. I had more outages with Cable than I ever have with Dish by a long ways. Don't be scared of a rain outage.

Good Luck, and I think you would be happy with either.

 

[SilverAlien81]

One more question

Sorry I forgot to put this in my original post, but why do I see some people with 2 Dish Network dishes on their roof in my neighborhood?

 

[rogerpl]

Sorry I forgot to put this in my original post, but why do I see some people with 2 Dish Network dishes on their roof in my neighborhood?

Cause it looks cool- really - Different sat locations mine are aimed at 110/119 and the other at 65

 

[tinydoughboy]

I can tell you that I have had a excellent experience with Dish, I rarely lose signal but that all depends on where you live and environment. Also the reason for the 2 dish could be if a person had dish prior to dish offering there local channels, I know I had to have a 2nd dish installed at one time for locals, and also for high def, but nowordays there is just 1 dish. unless your locals in hd are off another sat....

good luck ...

 

[LER]

Also, as in my case, sometimes the HD Local-to-Local is on the 61.5 satellite location.

See my setup in my signature.

I've been a Dish subscriber for 10 years, at 3 different houses, and they are usually very good.

If the dish is aligned and peaked correctly, you should rarely lose signal.

Please feel free to ask more questions.

 

[Raymie]

61.5, not 65.

Consumerist's Worst Company in America is normally a good barometer, but Dish was up against Countrywide and lost in the first round this year. Comcast got to the final match against Countrywide - and is currently losing by 12%.

 

[brownover]

I have dish and direct. I like dish more than direct and when the eastern arc becomes effective, I will probably switch the direct system to dish. Dish receivers are better and I don't believe dish has as much rain fade as direct. The dish VIP622 & 722 receivers are fantastic (they are hd), but the other receivers are really good too.

 

[KAB]

Remember on any forum, negatives will trump positives about 10 to 1.

 

[jjcttx]

i have had dish for about 10 months or so. i am very happy with the recievers. they have nice features and are hd. the fact that one reciever can power multiple tvs, with different programs being watched at the same time is great. i have multiple tvs, so having to get less receievers (and pay 5 dollar rental fees per month) is a great deal.

the price is good too overall, cheaper then directv for me too.

channel lineup is decent too.

very few 'outage' times. rain is sometimes an issue, but never really a problem. i live in the midwest and have a dish 1000+ that points to 110, 119 and 129.

but there are somethings i am unhappy about. they are way behind the curve in terms of adding hd channels then directv is (and others). they also just took away all the voom channels, which REALLY made me upset. And their 'on demand' service has really no free content, no hd content, and is really not good at all, in comparison to comcast on demand for instance.

so overall, i like dish, it is a good price and far better then the 'basic' analog comcast i had before. but its short of directv and if i could stomach more money (which i can't right now) i would consider them closely.

 

[apollog]

Dish is GOOD, it all depends on your installer. If they do a good job, you will not have problems. If you get a lazy installer, you'll definitely have problems. My sugestion is, that you ask all of questions before the install and watch their every move, so they won't take short cuts (ex. running lines on the roofs). The more your on them, the less they will get away with. :up

 

[HDRoberts]

I agree about installation. If your Dish is installed correctly and properly peaked, and there are no other obstructions, you will have limited rain fade issues. They should be every bit as reliable as Directv.

Dish generally has better receiver technology than Directv. For a long time they've had single wire to a dual tuner, they have receivers that can feed 2 TVs (including sharing the DVR), and they have been rated highly by companies like cNet for their tech. Dish also has some better Premium selections than Directv, depending on the pack.

They do have a few disadvantages. It is the opinion of most that Directv has superior SD picture quality (HD PQ is debatable), but it is difficult to notice on a SDTV. Direct has better sports options as well.

Dish also has had the tendency to outsource many of their CSRs, and they are frequently poorly trained, so customer service can be an issue at times.

Dish is very good, and certainly better than cable. Most of they users on this board are power users and want features and channels the average sub doesn't even know about. So we can be an exacting bunch. Also, many come here to vent, but few come to report the many positive experiences. Take many of the complaints you see around here with a grain of salt.

 

[paja]

I am looking at switching from Comcast to Dish Network, however I had a hard time finding some good review stories from consumers on Dish Network.

Please let me know how Dish Network is/has worked for you.

The only information I have from a friend is that Dish suffers from more signal loss due to rain fade etc. than DirecTV.

Thanks again,

I had DIRECT for many years before switching to DISH. Didn't lose the signal of one more than the other. I live in s/w suburbs of Chicago and get 2-4 outages a year due to rain usually lasting 2-5 minutes.

 

[wh5916]

They do have a few disadvantages. It is the opinion of most that Directv has superior SD picture quality (HD PQ is debatable), but it is difficult to notice on a SDTV.

Not in my own experience, at least not as of January 2007, when I dropped DirecTV and went with Dish because of pricing issues.. The biggest surprise, when making the move to Dish, was visibly better SD image quality on most channels...a huge shock, as I had last subscribed to Dish in 1997...image quality, at that time, was unacceptably soft on most channels. What a difference 10 years made--still not DVD quality, by any stretch of the imagination, but far better than I ever expected.

DirecTV, in 1997, had much better image quality than Dish when I switched over to them--at first, anyway. Then, many months later, DirecTV felt the need to compete with Dish by offering local channels. SD picture quality went downhill visibly, and I never saw it return to the quality that I had initially seen during those earliest months as a subscriber.

 

[OrlandoSGM]

I've been with DISH for about 7 years....During the big three hurricanes here in FL a few years ago, we only lost out signal for about 10-15 minutes, while everyone with cable was out for a week (we were also lucky to not be on a power grid that lost power). Make sure that the installer aligns your dish well and you should have very few problems....My neighbors loose their cable more than I loose my siginal!

 

[cooterbrown]

I can usually find a silver lining in a dark cloud. We've been with Dish for 6 months and can truly say it is the most disappointing purchase we have ever made. Programming changes, frequent dropped signals (we live in mid west), online bill pay which has worked sporadically.

People who are usually technically adept see, I guess, a lot of advantage in Dish Net. As most who frequent these forums seem to be.

I'm mostly an eternal optimist - but when you, as I do, feel regret for leaving a cable company for what you felt at the time was a superior product (only to find out you have not done your homework) - sometimes it backfires.

Keep up the good work - read all the comments - make informed decisions - learn from those who have gone before.'

 

[Thalador]

Don't be scared of a rain outage.

Easy to say. Living in Mass we have had thunderstorms every night for almost 3 weeks. I would say out of those 21 days I have had my E* work about 3 of them. It may not happen like this often, but when it does my TV is useless from 7pm until well into the early AM. I move timers on shows I want to DVR to record at 2am and it still has no signal.

I am going to post my own thread about this, but just wanted to let you know that rain outages DO happen and they can render your dish useless

 

[mlb]

Wow, I've had mine go out for short periods of time, but I've never had it go out for that long. I wonder if your dish is out of alignment.

 

[hrxtreme]

The only thing I ever have go out on me is 129. Reason: We get these really nasty rain storms which form over the mountains, blocking 129. It takes a serious dark, massive thunderhead to kill it though. Probably only happens a couple times a year. I suspect this will go down as well when Ciel-2 launches to 129. I had Comcast before, PQ on my locals was horrid, lost signal on TV and my internet at least once or twice a month for at least 30 mins.

 

[SilverAlien81]

Thanks for the help

Thanks to everyone who replied.

All the information has been helpful.